After AMP's share have now lost 28 per cent in two days,closing at $2.38 on Friday,Resolution's executive chairman also said he was surprised at the sharemarket's"extreme"reaction to the sale,which was announced alongside news of outflows from AMP's wealth management arm.
AMP is not the only wealth business whose share price has been hit this week,with IOOF also losing 11 per cent in the last two days,closing at $6.97.
“Most of my life since February this year has been me on one side of the table trying to persuade AMP’s management that they should let me buy this company at the price I normally pay,” Sir Clive said.
The unlisted Resolution is a specialist investor in life insurance businesses,backed by pension funds in search of steady returns. It has bought 27 life insurers since 2004,as banks and wealth managers have been abandoning life insurance in favour of sectors promising stronger growth.
Sir Clive said Resolution typically paid 0.7 to 0.75 times the embedded value of insurance companies it bought,but the dominant market position of AMP forced him up to 0.82 times for this deal.
“I paid up for it…but I required no other Australian asset to make our business model work in Australia,” he said.
Even so,many local analysts remain sceptical about the price AMP managed to achieve.